Google and Sun want Office users

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4310474.stm

Google and Sun Microsystems have joined forces to challenge the
dominance of Microsoft's Office software.
Google will offer Sun's OpenOffice software via its website, while
people downloading Sun's Java program will get the option to take
Google's toolbar.

Word processing and spreadsheet products are some of Microsoft's
biggest sales generators, earning the company $11bn (£6.3bn) last
year.

Microsoft is feeling pressure as firms offer cheaper or free rival
products.

Changing market

One of the biggest challenges facing Microsoft, the world's biggest
software company, is convincing customers to pay for bundles of
software like Office and Windows when they can find cheaper or free
versions elsewhere.

Companies like Google and Sun, meanwhile, are looking to eat further
and further into Microsoft's market share.

"Working with Google will make our technologies more available more
broadly, increase options for users, lower barriers and expand
participation worldwide," said Scott McNealy, Sun's chief executive
officer.

Tuesday's deal may prove to be the first of many projects, the firms
said.

Google and Sun's Java software "are two of the most widely recognized
technology brands because they provide users with online tools that
enhance their lives on a day to day basis", said Eric Schmidt,
Google's chief executive.

"We look forward to exploring other areas of collaboration."

Java software is needed to run a variety of Web applications.

--
http://www.houstoncrafts.com/houston...ds-page-1.html
Ear Threads - the hottest fashion item.


http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 120,000+ Newsgroups
----= East and West-Coast Server Farms - Total Privacy via Encryption =----

Paul <webmaster (AT) houstoncrafts (DOT) com> wrote:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4310474.stm

Google and Sun Microsystems have joined forces to challenge the
dominance of Microsoft's Office software.
Google will offer Sun's OpenOffice software via its website, while
people downloading Sun's Java program will get the option to take
Google's toolbar.

Hurray, so Java now comes with a !"%&"!%& IDE I probably don't want,
*and* a toolbar :-( It took me over a day to get Java downloaded :-(

Word processing and spreadsheet products are some of Microsoft's
biggest sales generators, earning the company $11bn (£6.3bn) last
year.

Microsoft is feeling pressure as firms offer cheaper or free rival
products.

I wonder how many companies use:

{a} an illegal version of MS Office
{b} a legal version of MS Office
{c} Open Office

For me, the worst thing about OpenOffice is that it's a UI copy of MS
Office, which is here and there extremely badly designed. I never
understood why people bash MS every day, and on the other hand work like
crazy to make clones that come as close to the stuff MS makes as
possible (KDE -> XP, OO -> Office, yikes).

MS does design some good UIs, but IMO Office is not an example of this.

One of the biggest challenges facing Microsoft, the world's biggest
software company, is convincing customers to pay for bundles of
software like Office and Windows when they can find cheaper or free
versions elsewhere.

Like free versions don't come with a price, it has to be downloaded (OO
is big, and if you need Java... more), installed, and worked around the
stuff it doesn't do.

Companies like Google and Sun, meanwhile, are looking to eat further
and further into Microsoft's market share.

Yup, embrace and extend.

Java software is needed to run a variety of Web applications.

Can't think of one, except my old, old demos. I was somehow afraid that
Flash had replaced Java on the web, and C# on the desktop. Hurray!

--
John Perl SEO tools: http://johnbokma.com/perl/
or have them custom made
Experienced (web) developer: http://castleamber.com/

On Wed, 05 Oct 2005 00:52:47 +0000, John Bokma wrote:

Paul <webmaster (AT) houstoncrafts (DOT) com> wrote:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4310474.stm

Google and Sun Microsystems have joined forces to challenge the
dominance of Microsoft's Office software.
Google will offer Sun's OpenOffice software via its website, while
people downloading Sun's Java program will get the option to take
Google's toolbar.

This is great. It's going to take profits away from Microsoft and
promote open source software. OpenOffice and Firefox are stepping stones
to Linux.

Hurray, so Java now comes with a !"%&"!%& IDE I probably don't want,
*and* a toolbar :-( It took me over a day to get Java downloaded :-(

You can download Java without NetBeans, and it says the Google toolbar is
only an option. No high-speed Internet?

For me, the worst thing about OpenOffice is that it's a UI copy of MS
Office, which is here and there extremely badly designed. I never
understood why people bash MS every day, and on the other hand work like
crazy to make clones that come as close to the stuff MS makes as
possible (KDE -> XP, OO -> Office, yikes).

I think they do it so that people will find it easier moving from Windows
to Linux. I prefer GNOME anyway...

wd10 <nospam (AT) abcd (DOT) invalid> wrote:

On Wed, 05 Oct 2005 00:52:47 +0000, John Bokma wrote:

Paul <webmaster (AT) houstoncrafts (DOT) com> wrote:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4310474.stm

Google and Sun Microsystems have joined forces to challenge the
dominance of Microsoft's Office software.
Google will offer Sun's OpenOffice software via its website, while
people downloading Sun's Java program will get the option to take
Google's toolbar.

This is great. It's going to take profits away from Microsoft and
promote open source software. OpenOffice and Firefox are stepping
stones to Linux.

I doubt the latter. I am happy with OO and Firefox on Windows. Some time
ago I even wrote something like: why bother to use Linux, a lot of OS is
just available for XP as well. I mean, if I move to Linux I can't use
several applications, but if I move "Linux" to XP I have both worlds :-
D.

Hurray, so Java now comes with a !"%&"!%& IDE I probably don't want,
*and* a toolbar :-( It took me over a day to get Java downloaded :-(

You can download Java without NetBeans,

My bad, I checked because of your reply, and indeed :-s Thanks.

and it says the Google toolbar
is only an option.

As long as it's not checked on etc.

No high-speed Internet?

Yes, (well, 512 kbps), but somehow the download stalled after roughly
60-70%. At the end of the day I gave it a try with wget, and that
worked.

For me, the worst thing about OpenOffice is that it's a UI copy of MS
Office, which is here and there extremely badly designed. I never
understood why people bash MS every day, and on the other hand work
like crazy to make clones that come as close to the stuff MS makes as
possible (KDE -> XP, OO -> Office, yikes).

I think they do it so that people will find it easier moving from
Windows to Linux.

Moving is even easier the software fixes some flaws. If you have ever
worked with RISC OS you know what I mean :-D.

I prefer GNOME anyway...

I stopped fighting uphill battles (if that's correct) some time ago, I
go with the flow, and I have the feeling that KDE is more used.

--
John Perl SEO tools: http://johnbokma.com/perl/
or have them custom made
Experienced (web) developer: http://castleamber.com/

On Wed, 05 Oct 2005 06:20:42 +0000, John Bokma wrote:

wd10 <nospam (AT) abcd (DOT) invalid> wrote:

On Wed, 05 Oct 2005 00:52:47 +0000, John Bokma wrote:

Paul <webmaster (AT) houstoncrafts (DOT) com> wrote:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4310474.stm

Google and Sun Microsystems have joined forces to challenge the
dominance of Microsoft's Office software.
Google will offer Sun's OpenOffice software via its website, while
people downloading Sun's Java program will get the option to take
Google's toolbar.

This is great. It's going to take profits away from Microsoft and
promote open source software. OpenOffice and Firefox are stepping
stones to Linux.

I doubt the latter. I am happy with OO and Firefox on Windows. Some time
ago I even wrote something like: why bother to use Linux, a lot of OS is
just available for XP as well. I mean, if I move to Linux I can't use
several applications, but if I move "Linux" to XP I have both worlds :-
D.

Firefox and OOo are good on Windows but I'm trying to get away from
everything having to do with Microsoft as much as possible. What can't
you use on Linux? A lot of Windows apps run on Linux now
including Photoshop.

My bad, I checked because of your reply, and indeed :-s Thanks.

and it says the Google toolbar
is only an option.

As long as it's not checked on etc.

It's probably going to be checked on. I don't like the way Adobe does
that with the Yahoo toolbar-spyware. Now Acrobat Reader has a Yahoo icon
on it which is annoying. Hopefully Sun won't be as obnoxious.

For me, the worst thing about OpenOffice is that it's a UI copy of MS
Office, which is here and there extremely badly designed. I never
understood why people bash MS every day, and on the other hand work
like crazy to make clones that come as close to the stuff MS makes as
possible (KDE -> XP, OO -> Office, yikes).

I think they do it so that people will find it easier moving from
Windows to Linux.

Moving is even easier the software fixes some flaws. If you have ever
worked with RISC OS you know what I mean :-D.

I never have. I looked at riscos.com and there is no place that I could
find that would answer the question, "what is RISCOS?" Looks like a tiny
OS with some user-friendly improvements?

I prefer GNOME anyway...

I stopped fighting uphill battles (if that's correct) some time ago, I
go with the flow, and I have the feeling that KDE is more used.

There are some things about KDE that I like, like hovering the mouse over
a file and getting a preview. GNOME taskbar just looks better to me
though, and the menus are better organized.

wd10 wrote:

Firefox and OOo are good on Windows but I'm trying to get away from
everything having to do with Microsoft as much as possible. What can't
you use on Linux? A lot of Windows apps run on Linux now
including Photoshop.

I'm with John on this one. Windows isn't too bad a desktop OS and (much
though I dislike Microsoft) better than Linux. I dislike X/Windows a lot. I run
OO (which I think is better than MS for word processing anyway even if
the UI is very similar), Firefox, Thunderbug and Cygwin so don't really
see a big need for Linsux.

Sorry this has nothing to do with SEM/SEO.

----------------------
http://www.abcseo.com/

On Wed, 05 Oct 2005 11:35:54 +0200, davidof
<david.george (AT) g-dumpthisbit-mail (DOT) com> wrote:

wd10 wrote:
Firefox and OOo are good on Windows but I'm trying to get away from
everything having to do with Microsoft as much as possible. What can't
you use on Linux? A lot of Windows apps run on Linux now
including Photoshop.

I'm with John on this one. Windows isn't too bad a desktop OS and (much
though I dislike Microsoft) better than Linux. I dislike X/Windows a lot. I run
OO (which I think is better than MS for word processing anyway even if
the UI is very similar), Firefox, Thunderbug and Cygwin so don't really
see a big need for Linsux.

Sorry this has nothing to do with SEM/SEO.

----------------------
http://www.abcseo.com/

Along with much of the traffic on this group these days. Speaking of
which, where's Shszter...Cshexterv...where's Roy?

BB
--
www.kruse.co.uk/ seo (AT) kruse (DOT) demon.co.uk
Elvis does my SEO

wd10 <nospam (AT) abcd (DOT) invalid> wrote:

On Wed, 05 Oct 2005 06:20:42 +0000, John Bokma wrote:

[ OO & Firefox stepping stones to Linux ]

I doubt the latter. I am happy with OO and Firefox on Windows. Some
time ago I even wrote something like: why bother to use Linux, a lot
of OS is just available for XP as well. I mean, if I move to Linux I
can't use several applications, but if I move "Linux" to XP I have
both worlds :- D.

Firefox and OOo are good on Windows but I'm trying to get away from
everything having to do with Microsoft as much as possible.

I never understood why people love or hate MS. It's just a thing that
makes money. I doubt that Sun, Apple, or any other company is any
better. And in the end, a lot of (if not all) serious OO applications
will be somehow managed by Big Companies. I mean, Firefox has a close
relation with Google (I don't like how my 404's suddenly are overtaken).

What
can't you use on Linux? A lot of Windows apps run on Linux now
including Photoshop.

Corel Xara 2.0, last time I tried it screwed up with the fonts,
MSN Messenger (haven't tried that one recently).

WINE is just not finished, and it will take ages to get even close.
Hence, if I switch to Linux I either buy VMWare, or wait until hardware
virtualization is a piece of cake, and Linux can run virtually Windows
without any problems.

[ Google Toolbar ]

It's probably going to be checked on. I don't like the way Adobe does
that with the Yahoo toolbar-spyware. Now Acrobat Reader has a Yahoo
icon on it which is annoying. Hopefully Sun won't be as obnoxious.

OO was never really about free as in beer, so I wouldn't count on it too
much. Companies are not nice, if they are, they are gone in a very short
time.

Moving is even easier the software fixes some flaws. If you have ever
worked with RISC OS you know what I mean :-D.

I never have. I looked at riscos.com and there is no place that I
could find that would answer the question, "what is RISCOS?" Looks
like a tiny OS with some user-friendly improvements?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RISC_OS

RISC OS was quite ahead of it's time (or right on time), but sadly made
by a British company that couldn't market it right. It had many nice
ideas, like each of the 3 mouse buttons had a fixed function in each
application (each application worked mainly with context menus), many
applications followed a style guide, etc.

The philosophy was mainly: make an application that is good at one
thing, and let it cooperate with others without problems. Hence instead
of one huge program with 10001 functions, there was a small program with
most used functions that most people could handle. And if it was too
small, there was often a drop in replacement with more functionality.

For example !Draw was quite sufficient for a lot of vector drawing. If
not, you could replace it with ArtWorks. Artworks worked very similar to
Draw, so users moving from Draw (included with the OS) to Artworks, were
able to draw like they were used to, and have many extra tools to
improve their drawing skills :-) (Sidenote: Xara was born out of
Artworks).

I prefer GNOME anyway...

I stopped fighting uphill battles (if that's correct) some time ago,
I go with the flow, and I have the feeling that KDE is more used.

There are some things about KDE that I like, like hovering the mouse
over a file and getting a preview. GNOME taskbar just looks better to
me though, and the menus are better organized.

But, IMO, both look not pleasant to the eye. I don't know, it's like a
weird theme on XP. It hasn't a style of its own, it just takes
everything from everywhere, glues it together, and calls it a desktop
(holds for both GNOME and KDE, IMO).

--
John Perl SEO tools: http://johnbokma.com/perl/
or have them custom made
Experienced (web) developer: http://castleamber.com/

davidof <david.george (AT) g-dumpthisbit-mail (DOT) com> wrote:

wd10 wrote:
Firefox and OOo are good on Windows but I'm trying to get away from
everything having to do with Microsoft as much as possible. What can't
you use on Linux? A lot of Windows apps run on Linux now
including Photoshop.

I'm with John on this one. Windows isn't too bad a desktop OS and (much
though I dislike Microsoft) better than Linux. I dislike X/Windows a lot. I run
OO (which I think is better than MS for word processing anyway even if
the UI is very similar), Firefox, Thunderbug and Cygwin so don't really
see a big need for Linsux.

Sorry this has nothing to do with SEM/SEO.

Well, in a way it does. As a SEO you must have some experience with Linux.
But you can install Apache, Perl, PHP, MySQL on Windows and get away with
it, a lot.

I made my new computer dual boot, but the only thing I did so far was
making grub boot XP default :-D.

--
John Perl SEO tools: http://johnbokma.com/perl/
or have them custom made
Experienced (web) developer: http://castleamber.com/

On 5 Oct 2005 19:18:52 GMT, John Bokma <john (AT) castleamber (DOT) com> wrote:

davidof <david.george (AT) g-dumpthisbit-mail (DOT) com> wrote:

wd10 wrote:
Firefox and OOo are good on Windows but I'm trying to get away from
everything having to do with Microsoft as much as possible. What can't
you use on Linux? A lot of Windows apps run on Linux now
including Photoshop.

I'm with John on this one. Windows isn't too bad a desktop OS and (much
though I dislike Microsoft) better than Linux. I dislike X/Windows a lot. I run
OO (which I think is better than MS for word processing anyway even if
the UI is very similar), Firefox, Thunderbug and Cygwin so don't really
see a big need for Linsux.

Sorry this has nothing to do with SEM/SEO.

Well, in a way it does. As a SEO you must have some experience with Linux.

Why?

BB

--
www.kruse.co.uk/ seo (AT) kruse (DOT) demon.co.uk
Elvis does my SEO